


Tale for Lovers, A

by thebasement_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-09-30
Updated: 1999-09-30
Packaged: 2018-11-20 09:17:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11332830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebasement_archivist/pseuds/thebasement_archivist
Summary: Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived atThe Basement, which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address onThe Basement's collection profile.





	Tale for Lovers, A

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Basement](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Basement), which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Basement's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thebasement/profile).

 

A Tale for Lovers by L. McKinnon

WARNING: DEATH STORY. But a beautifully heartbreaking one - read it anyway.  
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Mulder and Krycek belong to the following: Chris Carter, he, of the marvelous mind. 1013 Productions and the FOX network. There is no infringement intended. But if they want to hunt me down, just send one of the 'guys' to do it.  
This is NC17. No violence, only implied sex of the M/M variety, and the language is...human.  
Archive at MKRA/MSSS, please and thank you. Or anywhere else, just let me know where.  
Notes: This is not beta'ed. It is posted in haste, before I find myself bereft of what small courage I call mine own.  
Many, many thanks Master, you always listen well.  
Feedback is always welcomed, but let it be constructive feedback. 

* * *

A Tale for Lovers  
by L. McKinnon

'Maybe if I write about love and death, I will be free to write about life.'

The sky was blue, deep and dark, streaked with gray, gold clouds. The sun, soon to be setting, reflected off the wings of the air guard jet making circles in the clear air. One last time in the sky 'til the storm got here, one last lazy circle in the freedom of flight before becoming land bound in the harshness of winter. For a moment he watched, envying the white streak of contrail on the blue, the gold, sliver flash shivering in the air.

Alex shut the curtains. Turning, he looked at the warm, welcoming room. It was the room that they had spent the most time in, the room that held their laughter, their long, long talks, their ever growing companionship, and sometimes their sounds of love. The room now held only his silence.

The funeral had gone well, if one could say that about a funeral. Scully, her husband and her two young sons had stayed for a few days, helping him, talking with him, crying with him. Scully that is, not Ron, or Walter and James. Ron Sanderson had taken the two teenagers into town for a movie and pizza on day number two after the funeral. It was something that the three men had needed. As much as Scully and Alex had needed the time with each other.

For some reason he thought of the funeral as being quieter, sounds more muffled than others that he remembered.

Walter's funeral, now there was funeral. Music, military splendor, and FBI panoply. The flag on the casket had been given to Walter's elderly mother, who had held it in her palsied hands, away from her body as if it were some strange animal, capable of inflicting great pain. Fox had gasped like he had been hit when she was given the flag. Alex knew he was the only one who heard the cry. Even though Scully had raised her head and looked at them over the open grave, just looked at them.

Walter had survived it all. All except a drunken teenage driver.

In point of fact they had all survived. It had been like a slow fall of dominoes all lined up in a row. Click, click, click. All it had taken was the material that the Englishman had turned over to Mulder, the shiny disc slipped into his pocket. Done, as he told Mulder to flee, to turn, go, save his partner. Slipped into his pocket as he told Mulder to save the world.

The bomb in the information was that he had given Alex 'Ratboy' Krycek all the decoder keys. Yeah, in order to save the world the Fox and the Rat were going to have to work together.

That must have been such a laugh for the Englishman, a man whom he had never heard laugh.

His fingers drifted over the flag, the folded three cornered packet that he held in his lap. Looking around the room, his gaze drifted over the fireplace laid and ready for a match. The tray setting on the table besides his chair, holding his coffee cup, a small piece of shortbread and his gun. The sunlight was gone now, sometime ago he had turned on a lamp, the small one that they had used on occasion as a night light when they were going to be late coming in. It gave all the light he needed right now.

At this funeral he had been given the flag.

The clean up had taken the better part of three years. It had been bitter, nasty work. Many had paid with their lives. But they, they had all survived. Wounded and scared, they had survived. The truce that the Englishman had forced on the Fox and the Rat, had given them their best chance, in fact their only chance. Walter had commented later, much, much later that he was proud to know them, for they had worked together, not using the information to kill each other. For the longest time all the Fox had wanted to do was to put his gun in the Rat's mouth and pull the trigger, he had made no bones about it.

And the Rat, well the Rat had done nothing to stop the rages, he had done nothing to fight back, the Rat had stood there and took it all. The screams, the slaps, being thrown into the nearest wall. After it all the Rat would slowly climb back to his feet, and together, they would lay out the next research station to raid, barter the next group of mercenaries down, break and enter into the next arms depot needed.

It had to be them, them, along with what help Scully and Skinner, and the others could give. It was done while leaving governments intact, big businesses up and running, and most of the known world totally and completely unaware of the war and it's ending. Sure there was that big spike in crime, and those many ugly, small wars, and atrocity filled, third world revolutions, but there had always been things like that...what better way to hide than out in plain sight.

Like dominoes, click, click, click. Once a domino was down the good guys, the real world good guys would step in and clean it up. It had surprised no one, really, to find out that most of the bad stuff was being done by those on a secondary level. After all sergeants ran the military didn't they?

Like dominoes, click... For several weeks after the last installation was closed down, the Fox and the Rat roamed with restless energy down highways, roads, through streets, hallways, never believing that it was over, not sure that they wanted to believe that it was over. But it was.

Alex was unaware of the smile, a small sweet smile, on his lips.

They had been shutting down the latest, and last, of the bolt holes they, and the Lone Gunmen, had set up. Well, not really the last, since Alex, being Alex, still had one place to run to, a place of his own to retreat to, and finish the job. Mulder had been acting strange for the last several days, and he figured that he had best be on his way, soon, or Mulder would give him some assistance.

The sunlight had laid in dusty bars across the small room, as they had packed the computer equipment into shipping boxes. Alex had looked up once to find Mulder frowning at him, but had said nothing, looking back down, continuing to pack the bits and pieces. Mulder's hands on his shoulders throwing him back against the wall was no small surprise.

'Once more for old times sake, eh Fox', he had grinned at that well loved face.

The kiss hurt more than any blow could ever have done.

They had made love there, on the floor, the dirty, dusty floor. Alex's tears had made trails down his face, tracks in the dust.

And he had fled.

It had taken Mulder 4 months, but he had done it. He grabbed Alex one bright sunny morning as he left to go to class. Grabbed him, kissed him, hit him and kissed him again. They were never apart for any length of time after that.

Until now.

Dana Scully had met Ron Sanderson during year two of the clean up. James was born in year three. His birth was celebrated along with the victory. Walter was born two years later and his birth was celebrated along with Dana and Ron's marriage. Alex had missed the christening ceremony for their first son and was unaware that James middle name was Fox. Unaware until reacting with joyous surprise at the christening of Walter Alexander Sanderson. Mulder claimed that would be the last secret that he would ever keep from Alex. Alex could never make that claim.

Almost like a fairy tale, huh? We get to live happily ever after. We saved the world and we get to live happily ever after.

It wasn't easy, living happily ever after. They both had nightmares. There were times when he could tell that Mulder wanted to hit him, to throw him against a wall. Those times didn't happen all that often, but they did happen. There were times when he couldn't take it, the feeling that the walls were closing in on him, that he had to run, to flee. But he always came back, one week, 10 days, once he was gone for almost a month. He always came back.

After Mulder had resigned from the FBI, he did some consulting work for various police departments, and some writing. When he was asked to teach some forensic courses at the local college, he accepted and seemed to find a home. Both the writing and consulting continued.

Alex played at a lot of different things, translating, computers, security. For awhile he even wrote, having a couple of spy tales published, never best sellers, but good nonetheless. Mostly he took care of Mulder, their home, their life.

They didn't make love often.

They held each other a lot. But they didn't make love often. It was as if the heat of their passion had all been channeled into the destruction of their common enemy

That blazing fire, all bright lights and gunfire, screams and fists, blood and horror, had been consumed, only to be replaced with a steady heat. A heat that warmed them, protected them from the cold harshness of life. A heat that was like the beat of a heart, slow, steady and constant. That heat was their life, their love.

Alex was always in awe of the joy that he felt in rolling over in the night to find curled up next to him, the Fox. Warm, smelling of spice and that which made him Mulder, the loved one. To shift in the darkness and feel the warmth of an arm holding him close, warm breath on his neck, heat spooned against him to protect him from the cold.

He had not been warm since he had held his dying Fox in his arms.

Alex was not aware of the tears, leaving wet tracks down his face.

The coroner had said it was a heart attack. Massive, death on a major scale. A heart attack. Even if help had gotten there he would still have died. Scully had done as he asked and was in agreement with results of the autopsy.

Fox Mulder, 48, dead of a heart attack. The irony of the event did not escape Alex.

The wind shifted outside and the one loose shutter banged against the wall. The storm was well on its way, the first bad one of the winter. The forecasters were talking almost blizzard conditions, freezing temperatures and high winds.

The noise brought him back to the present, to the here and now.

The letter had been finished early in the afternoon. It, all the lab results and the biopsy report were sealed and marked for Scully. At the end of their visit he had given her all the paper work that made her the executor of not only Mulder's estate, but his also. They had stood on the porch a week ago, looking at each other with respect, and yes, love. Long and hard fought for, respect and love.

In a perverse way Alex was glad that Mulder had gone first. When the final results had come in, his first thought was one of relief at not having to lie to Mulder. Not having to shield him from the news. He had known for awhile there there was something wrong, had known and ignored it. Trying to cram as much as he could into his days and nights. Hiding the blood that he would throw up, the pain that would feel like dry ice in his belly. All the while thinking that it would be he who would be leaving. Never, ever thinking, that it would be both of them.

There was a certain symmetry in that knowledge.

The house was growing cold. He had spent yesterday winterizing it. He had left it to Scully's boys. That knowledge pleased him. All in all, this was how it should be. The rightness of it all, eased the pain. It had gotten worse in the last few days, a gnawing, nastiness that left him sick and shaking.

Slowly getting up he took the tray to the kitchen, rinsed out the cup, threw the napkin and the shortbread away. The gun he took and slid into the holster, he wasn't sure why he had put it on. The same way he wasn't sure why he had put on his boots, the black jeans, Fox's favorite sweater, only knowing that he had to do this. The smell of Mulder lingered in the sweater. Pulling the draw string on the trash bag, he set it beside the door.

Shrugging on the old black leather jacket, he leaned up against the door to wait for the pain to pass. He could hear the hiss of the wind driven snow. It would be cold outside. He smiled in anticipation. Opening the door, he grabbed the trash bag, moved it to the porch, shut and locked the door.

There was a place that they had both liked, they had walked there often, sitting and watching the sun go down. Once they had made love there, in the warmth of the sun, on sweet smelling grass.

He left the trashbag in the dumpster. At the gate, he took one last look at the house.

Then without looking back, he turned and walked into the woods.

finis...


End file.
